This is about the ups and downs of first-timers taking on a fairly major building project - including extensions, conversions and landscaping. Scary expensive stuff!

Thursday, 22 August 2013

Estimates, Guesstimates & Really Hard Sums!

We got the first quote through from one of the builders we've contacted this week. Which is great, because we now have some idea of the cost involved. Except we don't really, because he's just quoted for the building work, not fixtures and fittings, and some of the extra stuff, so we need to work out roughly what the kitchen will cost, and floor tiles for the massive back room, oh, and the suites, taps and showers etc for two bathrooms and a cloakroom, not forgetting a new boiler, and .... well, you get the idea. Basically we have a lot of work to do still before we decide whether to go ahead with both of the extensions and the loft conversion, or whether to do everything to a really good standard we need to let one of them go.

It's tricky, because obviously we'd ideally love to do everything, but we have a definite budget, and don't want to go into debt to finish things - or be left with a half finished house - but equally, we don't want to decide not to do the loft, and then get to the end and find we could have afforded it after all. Which is where the sums come in. Not only is it hard to guess the cost of some things, but even to think of everything we need to guess the costs of! We have to include carpets, furniture, kitchen appliances, everything.

We have another builder quoting for the job, which we'll hopefully get soon, but we also need to do some running round and pricing up of all the other things. A lot can be done in the interweb, luckily, but we're also planning to go through one or two kitchen planning appointments. Not to settle a final design, but just to get a good idea of how many units we'll need and a guesstimate of the cost of that. I suppose things are moving on - it just sometimes feels like we're not really getting anywhere!